Stargazer - Anne Hillerman

   2021; 320 pages.  Book 24 (out of 25) in the “Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Native American Literature; Murder-Mystery; Astronomy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    It was going to be an easy investigation.  The facts were clear-cut.  Maya and Steve are divorced; the latter wants to give it one more try; Maya says no.

 

    Steve gets distraught, drives out into the desert and shoots himself in the head with his own gun.  The firearm is recovered outside the open driver’s-side window, which makes sense since Steve was left-handed.  It’s an obvious suicide, as any detective can tell.  Then things get a bit weird.

 

    While the cops are at police headquarters, wrapping up the paperwork on case, Maya shows up, confesses to shooting Steve, and refuses to give any further details about it.  Officer Bernadette “Bernie” Manuelito, who years ago was Maya’s roommate, is asked to take a closer look at the case.

 

    Then things get even weirder.

 

What’s To Like...

    Although the cover calls this a “Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito” novel, the latter does all the investigating here.  Leaphorn is now a retired cop, and Chee is busy with a dual role of being both Bernie’s husband and boss. 

 

    As is true of any Hillerman novel, whether it be by Tony or Anne, Stargazer is both a murder-mystery and a study of Native American culture.  But here, as alluded to by the title, a healthy dose of astronomy is added, includ9ng both the technological goings-on at a New Mexico site called the Very Large Array  radio telescope (“VLA”), and what the various star formations such as the Big Dipper, North Star and Milky Way are called in Navajo, and why.

 

    Anne Hillerman utilizes a lot of Navajo vocabulary in the story, but the English equivalent is always given the first time a Native American word is used, and there’s a handy and comprehensive Navajo/English glossary in the back in case you forget.  The Author’s Note, also in the back, is well worth your reading time, especially if you want to know what’s real and what’s fictional in the storyline.  And at one point, Joe Leaphorn gives Bernie some practical tips on how to tell if a person is lying, which I found quite enlightening.

 

    There’s never a dull moment in Officer Manuelito’s workday.  When she isn’t trying to determine why Maya would give a voluntary but false confession, Bernie also has to figure out who beat up and tied up Bee, why is some stranger named Ginger Simons trying to get in touch with her, and the identity of a toddler found dead in the same house as Bee.  Lastly and not leastly, Bernie is assigned to bring in the charming Melvin Shorty on an FTA charge, which provides a bit of comic relief, as exemplified by one of the excerpts below.

 

    The ending is tense, but I didn’t find it particularly exciting.  I’m proud to say I had the perpetrator pegged from the beginning, which is a rarity for me.  But that just meant when perp and cop ended up alone together (is that an oxymoron?), I could pretty much predict what was about to go down and the outcome.  The last two chapters tie up a couple loose ends, including Leaphorn’s fear of flying and why Bernie can’t remember who Ginger is.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 7,376 ratings and 438 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.19/5 based on 7,189 ratings and 725 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

    Bilagáana (n.) : white man; Caucasian; Anglo (Navajo)

    Others:  a slew of Navajo words in the text, all covered in the book’s glossary.

 

Excerpts...

    “Mr. Shorty, the courts don’t care about excuses.  You’ve got to go to jail now.”

    He put his hands in the pockets of his overalls.  “Call me Mel.  Officer Bernadette Manuelito, my wife made some pumpkin pancakes before she left for her job, and there are three of them left.  They sure are good.  Could you use one?”

    She shook her head.  “We need to leave for Shiprock.”

    “What’s the hurry?  You sound like a white person.”  (loc. 685)

 

    Even though Window Rock was in Arizona, the Navajo Nation’s capital city received what they called local news from Albuquerque’s television stations.  Most of the stories concerned fresh crime and ongoing investigations, which, as a veteran cop, he found riveting.  The reporters ignored the Navajo Nation unless there was an election, a pandemic, an environmental disaster, a winning high school sports team, or perhaps a Sasquatch sighting up in the Lukachukai Mountains.  (loc. 2752)

 

Kindle Details…

    Stargazer sells for $8.49 at Amazon right now.  Books 1-18 in the series, written by Anne’s father, Tony Hillerman, are in the $6.99-$13.49 range.  Anne Hillerman took over writing the series when her father passed away; Books 19-25 are by her and are in the $6.99-$14.99 price range.  Book 26, The Way of the Bear, is due out sometime this fall.

 

“You and I seem to go together like flies on a cow pie.”  (loc. 947)

    Stargazer is admirably sparse in profanity; I noted just one “ass” in the entire book.  I am always impressed by authors who use their literary skills to set the tone of a story instead of resorting to excessive profanity.

 

    There is an underlying examination of the abuse of women throughout the storyline, which apparently occurs all too frequently in Native American society.  A couple reviewers took exception to the inclusion of this topic, but I will trust Anne Hillerman’s assertion that it is a major problem on reservations, and am happy she turns the spotlight on it.

 

    My biggest issue with Stargazer was the plethora of irrelevant storylines.  I kept waiting for the Bee and Ginger and Melvin and Leaphorn’s fear-of-flying tangents to tie into the main plot thread in some clever fashion.  But they never did.  Which made them feel like just potholes in the path of the investigation.

 

    This doesn’t mean Stargazer is a poor book.  On at least three counts—Astronomy, Women’s Rights, and Native American culture—it is a noteworthy effort.  And the Murder-Mystery aspect, isn’t bad either; it just wanders off a bit too much for my reading tastes.

 

    7 Stars.  My favorite Navajo expression in Stargazer was the oft-used Yá’át’ééh, which the glossary notes can mean “hello” or “it is good”, and yes it takes four accent marks and two apostrophes to spell that precisely.  I learned the word many years ago from an Apache friend, and it comprises 50% of my Native American vocabulary.  The other half is an Apache insult that is said to be the worst slam you can give to a Native American, and is guaranteed to start a fight in any bar.  We’ll refrain from detailing it here.